HYBE's a Mess, Mess, Mess, Mess, Mess, Mess, Mess

The penultimate week of April experienced one of the largest conflicts in the modern K-pop world. The sudden audit released by HYBE against one of its subsidiaries, ADOR, struck many by surprise, particularly ADOR’s CEO Min Hee-jin. A teary press conference flooded the South Korean and world headlines, in which world-renowned K-pop groups’ names were dropped and text messages leaked. Fans dread the increasingly possible scenario of one of the beloved HYBE girl groups, NewJeans, disbanding. Let’s go over the details.

Min Hee-jin’s “Impurities”

HYBE swiftly seized the attention of the South Korean public when a staggering press release on April 22, 2024 announced an audit on ADOR and demanded Min Hee-jin to step down from her position. What was covered in the audit?

The audit, which is currently undisclosed to the public, revealed that Min Hee-jin and the two deputy CEOs of ADOR allegedly leaked key information and consulted external entities such as foreign investment advisors, private equity firms, securities firm analysts, and consultants inappropriately – ultimately for the consultation of possible methods of financing ADOR’s secession from HYBE (Koreaboo, 2024). Strategies such as pressuring HYBE to sell the 80% share of ADOR that it holds, counter attacking HYBE’s actions and pulling in global funds were allegedly discussed; the chats discussing these topics were exposed in the press release (Soompi, 2024). They also allegedly leaked artists’ personal information, including artists’ pre-debut media and personal health information, and attempted to manipulate public opinion on HYBE artists negatively .

We’re not “Cool With You”, HYBE

HYBE’s bombardment of accusations could not be ignored. On the same day, ADOR publicized their own press release, striking back with accusations of plagiarism conducted by BELIFT LAB, the HYBE subsidiary managing newly debuted ILLIT’s operations. ILLIT was accused of plagiarising NewJeans’ hair, makeup, clothing, choreography, photos, videos, and event appearances (Soompi, 2024). Upon this basis, HYBE was called out for being blinded by short-term profits by mass-producing unoriginality. Moreover, they labeled the takeover accusations as merely “media plays”.

“Attention” on Min Hee-jin

All eyes and camera flashes were pointed at teary-eyed Min Hee-jin as she exposed her story on 25 April. She denied any “usurper” accusation (Korea JoongAng Daily, 2024). She expressed her troubles as the figure in HYBE that was always hung in a frame and always needed to break it, mentioning that she had become the witch and that HYBE executives wanted to kill her. HYBE was also allegedly the reason why she had to attend therapy.

She also mentioned the unfairness in the collaboration with Bang Si-hyuk, chairman of HYBE. Originally, Bang Si-hyuk told her to build the “Min Hee-jin world”, planning and managing a girl group of her own with her own creativity. However, her plans were seemingly postponed due to abrupt news from Park Ji-won, HYBE vice CEO, and So Sung-jin, Source Music founder, stating that HYBE’s first girl group will be managed by Source Music, consisting of Sakura and Kim Chaewon from the then recently disbanded group IZ*ONE. Parents of trainees that eventually became NewJeans’ members feared that their children would not have the chance to debut. Further challenges were faced by Min Hee-jin, stating that Park Ji-won urged not to promote NewJeans before Le Sserafim’s debut to manipulate the public into thinking that Le Sserafim was Min Hee-jin’s girl group. Min Hee-jin’s response was to create a new subsidiary, but Bang Si-hyuk would only allow the creation of ADOR with HYBE in 100% ownership of the shares, even though it was supposed to be “Min Hee-jin’s world”. But after NewJeans’ unprecedented success in their debut, Bang Si-hyuk texted “You can beat aespa in December, right?” even though Min Hee-jin did not place competition as a priority.

Lastly, the allegations of plagiarism of NewJeans by ILLIT were further reinforced, providing more examples such as hanbok pictorials which apparently never existed before NewJeans, implying that this was purely Min Hee-jin’s idea that they have copied. ILLIT’s collaboration with fashion brand Acne Studios was apparently a copy of NewJeans’ collaboration with Chanel, both in their debuts.

Response “ASAP”

Clapping back at the press conference, HYBE clarified on the next day about various topics discussed by Min Hee-jin. About the alleged promise of NewJeans being the first HYBE girl group, HYBE clarified that Min Hee-jin only requested for the full responsibility of managing NewJeans under a separate label, which resulted in a delay of debut – which was not of HYBE’s intention – due to contract transfers and creating ADOR (Koreaboo, 2024). HYBE also cited an interview in March 24, 2022, where she stated herself that a rushed debut would exert extra pressure on the trainees, so her plan was to debut them in the third quarter of 2022 (actual debut date: July 22, 2022).

Regarding the lack of promotion for NewJeans, HYBE stated that they agreed on set periods of promotion for Le Sserafim and NewJeans due to their consecutive debuts, and Le Sserafim’s debut promotion was cut short. Numerical data of the number of articles written by HYBE’s Communication Department was also given to disprove the neglection of NewJeans’ promotion, showing that 273 articles were written for NewJeans, in comparison to 659 articles for BTS and 365 articles for Seventeen, both beloved by K-pop stans worldwide.

Sour Times

The “witch” of HYBE successfully casted a spell on the hearts of the South Korean public. Opinion polls on the South Korean internet have shown that over 90% of respondents support Min Hee-jin (Allkpop, 2024). One possible reason for this overwhelming support is the underlying gender divide in South Korean corporate society. The average gender pay gap in South Korea is 37% (OECD, 2017) compared to Indonesia’s 23% (ILO, 2020). The discrepancy becomes much more evident climbing up the corporate ladder, with only 1% of CEOs being women (ISS Analytics, 2018) compared to Indonesia’s less than 5% (Geotimes, 2023). As a part of that 1%, Min Hee-jin may have felt alienated and even discriminated against by the sudden audit report which was not conducted for any other subsidiary. Knowing the severity of the gender divide, the South Korean public gravitated towards Min Hee-jin.

Another reason for the massive support for Min Hee-jin is the past decisions of Bang Si-hyuk and Park Ji-won. Park Ji-won's foul framing of Le Sserafim as Min Hee-jin’s girl group was an attempt to blatantly lie to the K-pop community. Bang Si-hyuk’s demand for 100% shares of ADOR completely disrespected Min Hee-jin’s efforts of independently managing NewJeans.

ILLIT’s plagiarism has also not gone unnoticed by the public. Waves of commenters in ILLIT’s social media pages were reminded of the established NewJeans and wrongly assumed they released a new song, when in fact it was an entirely new group formed from the winners of the survival show R U Next. The plagiarism was exemplified by similarities in 2D illustrations of members, appearances in Elle magazine, the poses in the hanbok pictorials and usage of several key choreography movements of NewJeans in ILLIT’s first song.

On the contrary, the two groups’ songs display clear distinction in their concepts. ILLIT’s debut song “Magnetic” takes on a dreamy and cute concept characterized by the light arpeggios playing in the background. Meanwhile, NewJeans’ songs are characterized by the school feel due to its upbeat hip-hop music. For example, the song “Attention” is characterized by the claps and “ay ay ay” background sound, and the song “Ditto” – the most dreamy of NewJeans’ songs – displays its upbeat nature through the rapid percussion in the background and long high notes sung by the artists. The hanbok pictorials have also been done by various other K-pop groups, so Min Hee-jin clearly did not invent it. Additionally, when 4.6 billion other people in Asia also have black hair, is it fair to accuse ILLIT of plagiarising NewJeans’ hair?

Min Hee-jin may have stated that “the adults have sinned” – referring to ILLIT’s creative management – but ILLIT members have tanked the largest amount of hateful sentiment in their lives. Min Hee-jin’s ignorance of HYBE’s rule of not mentioning artists during press conferences combined with alleged lipsync in performances induced a huge mental toll on ILLIT members as thousands of commenters worldwide flocked to ILLIT’s social media pages and livestreams to display their hate. Although by no intention of Min Hee-jin, the hate was clearly misdirected because ILLIT does not manage their own activities, yet they are being bashed left right and center for their “shortcomings”. What sin has ILLIT committed to possibly justify the level of hate when they are just trying to make their dream of becoming an idol come true?

Moreover, any sharing of artists’ personal information disrespects the right to privacy and breaches the trust that the artists have for their company. Could this have led Lee Youngseo, who was supposed to debut in ILLIT, to leave the group? Was a false media campaign started by Min Hee-jin to force Kim Garam out of Le Sserafim? The blood, sweat and tears poured into training finally showed results as they were in or confirmed to be in a group, only for their dreams to be crushed by malicious intent (hopefully not the case).

The war of public opinion has been waged. HYBE only publicly exposed Min Hee-jin’s attempts to seize full control of ADOR, but Min Hee-jin fired back by bringing down ILLIT’s name. Perhaps Min Hee-jin shielded herself from accusations that were possibly true by deflecting the problem to ILLIT under the guise of ‘protecting NewJeans’ at the expense of ILLIT members’ mental health.